Waylay.
“Damn it,” I muttered, jumping off the bed. My first day on the job as a guardian, and I’d left my new charge unattended for who knew how long. She could have been abducted by her mother or mauled by a bear while I indulged in an afternoon nap.
I sucked, I decided as I raced down the stairs.
“Geez. Don’t break your neck or anything.”
Waylay sat at the kitchen table, swinging a bare foot while she chowed down on what appeared to be a peanut butter and jelly sandwich with thick white bread and enough jelly to cause instant cavities.
“Coffee,” I croaked at her.
“Man, you look like a zombie.”
“Zombie needs coffee.”
“Soda in the fridge.”
Soda would have to do. I stumbled my way to the refrigerator and opened it. I was halfway through the can of Pepsi before I realized there was food inside.
“Where food from?” I rasped. I was not an easy waker from naps. In the morning, I could bound out of bed with the energy of a sugared-up kindergarten class. But Post-Nap Naomi wasn’t pretty. Or coherent.
Waylay gave me a long look. “Are you trying to ask me where the food came from?”
I held up a finger and downed the rest of the soda.
“Yeah,” I wheezed finally as the cold caffeine and sugar burned my throat. “That.” I paused to burp indelicately. “Excuse me.”
Waylay smirked. “Chief Nash had a delivery lady drop off a bag of groceries while you were drooling all over your bed.”
My eyeballs felt gritty as I blinked. The chief of police had seen to delivering food that I’d been too unconscious to provide for my niece. I was not going to get a gold star in guardianship today.
“Crap,” I muttered.
“It’s not crap,” Waylay argued around a huge bite of PB&J. “There’s some candy and some chips.”
I needed to claw my way back up the scale toward Responsible Adult and needed to do it fast.
“We need a list,” I decided, scrubbing my hands over my eyes. “We need to figure out how far we are from civilization, how to get there, what supplies we need for the next day or two.”
Coffee. I definitely needed coffee.
“It’s like half a mile to town,” Waylay said. She had a smear of jelly on her chin and, besides her “my aunt is a lunatic” expression, she looked adorably childlike. “Why are your arms and knees all scraped up?”
I glanced down at the abrasions on my skin. “I climbed out of a church basement window.”
“Cool. So, we’re going into town?”
“Yes. I just need to take a kitchen inventory,” I decided, finding my purse on the counter and digging out my trusty notebook and pen.
Coffee.
Food.
Transportation?
Job?
New purpose in life?